Jodi Ruckley, 33, a volunteer with PETA, dressed as a bear, protesting the use of the palace's Houseguards bearskin hats, struggles with a policeman as she is placed into a police van at the gate of the Istana or Presidential Palace where Britain's Queen Elizabeth II was expected to arrive on Friday March 17, 2006 in Singapore.

If there were video, the world would be a better place. Right now there is probably a photographer who has just been fired from a Singaporean news outlet because the editor got threatened with multimillion fines by the films review board.

Look, you shouldn't mess with bears in the springtime. That sow is probably very hungry and may be agitated by an eight inch fecal plug that formed during hibernation. The cop would be smarter to just throw a birdfeeder into the van and let her follow it in there.

Rule of thumb: All policy decisions will offend at least one person, so if the body of people offended by policy X is represented by obsessed ninnies handing out leaflets dressed as teddy bears, then policy X is pretty much as inoffensive as you can hope to get.

I wasn't talking about terrorism at all, although I thank you for pointing out the connection between animal activism and domestic terrorism.

All I was saying is that, when many normal people complain about a policy, then that policy is troublesome. But when the only complaints you get are from a tiny handful of ultra-fringe ponytailed weirdos in bear costumes whose favorite word is "maaaaaan," then the policy is probably acceptable to the other, say, 98% of the population. Which is the approximate practical maximum.

A statistical model that accounts for all the data except a tiny number of outliers is usually an acceptable statistical model. Likewise, a policy that offends no one except a tiny number of outliers is usually an acceptable policy.

Even if these activist outliers use violence instead of leaflets, that doesn't change the fact that they're outliers.

down with the queen! sod the lot of them! including their rancid nazi-uniform wearing knobhead of a son, their ghormenghast ceremonials and fucking imperial-i-wish-it-were-1873 bearskin hats. bah. release charlies toothpaste squeezer NOW!